Green Spot

The current marketplace is chock full of great products that are useful, reusable, made from repurposed materials and are friendly to the environment - All good things for you and the world around you. For instance - Check out the Oooms Solar Birdhouse.

During the day, its a normal birdhouse with a perch, yet there’s a solar panel on top. At night, the perch glows to let birds know it still open for business, at no energy cost to you! Plus they can invite the Robins over for a cocktail party for some malted seed, right?

What about a Cup Couture Sleeve? Everday, hundreds of thousands of people buy a coffee or tea and it comes with a paper sleeve to keep your hand safe from burning. What happens to that paper sleeve? It’s wasted. Thrown away, everyday. All those consumers of coffee take the sleeve and chuck it. Not anymore - with the the Couture Sleeve, you can say “no thank you” to the paper coffee sleeve and use your very own, fashionable sleeve that reduces waste today.

Finally, we here at Simply Green Solutions still offer great eco-items such as Organic Bamboo Reusable Tote Bags that can be custom printed with an environmentally-friendly process, and Reusable Canteens too. Whatever the case may be, eco friendly goods are abound, so go green today!

Greencessories, otherwise known as personal accessories for the home or yourself that are eco-friendly in nature, have become quite popular in the last few years. Aside from reusable bags and canteens, consumers have adorned themselves and their daily habits and houses with items that help to foster a green way of living.

For instance, check out the Personal Home Recycling system. With this trash-can sized receptacle, you can be notified of the next recycling-day pick outside your home or building to ensure you don’t miss the chance to add to your municipality’s recycling program. It has an oder-eliminator for the different compartments of paper, plastic or other material sections, and can compact all items to hold items efficiently.

The Ultimate Green Store sells solar charges and Jewelry from post-consumer materials, and the Ree Store offers desks from post-travel airplane wings and repurposed shopping carts as office chairs. By utilizing eco-attentive outlets such as the ones mentioned above for greencessories, not only does it support a grassroots industry created by families and small-business owners (not big conglomerates), but it also tells large, corporate outlets such as Target to research and develop their reuse and repurpose programs for consumer products as well. Consumer demand can help the world reduce waste and ensure recycled materials become commonplace.

Do-it-yourselfers such as Liana Kabel and the good people at Elsewares, provide found objects remade into wearable jewelry, toys, tableware and more. By ensuring products are pulled from garage sales, donation bins, or dollar-boxes at local vintage shops, artists such as the ones mentioned provide inspiration for a new dawn of people looking to provide crafts as gifts, and spread awareness of reducing, reusing and recycling for people to greencessorize today.

DIY Jewelry

Post-consumer material become Wearable!

Then say hello to that new pair of shoes in a reusable bag, starting with Puma. The 3rd largest sporting goods manufacturer behind Nike and Adidas, has redesigned their shoe box that will in turn, reduce their energy and water usage by over 60% within the year after it rolls out.

“Puma estimates that the [new packaging] will slash water, energy, and fuel consumption during manufacturing alone by 60%—in one year, that comes to a savings of 8,500 tons of paper, 20 million mega joules of electricity, 264,000 gallons of fuel, and 264 gallons of water.“

Employing the know-how of a world renowned industrial designer, a unique cardboard structure was built to encase and protect its shoes within a reusable bag made of PET, something we know a lot about. The new cardboard “skeleton” which takes form upon being wrapped by the reusable bag, uses 65% less cardboard than a shoe box and has no laminate - making biodegrading or recycling easier. Hopefully other companies will follow suit and follow in the greener and sportier footsteps of Puma.

VID: See how PUMA says good bye to shoe boxes.

Guess who's leaping into even more eco-friendliness?

After quite a hiatus we are back to blogging daily! We would like to wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year, it’s the year of the Tiger and we are very excited to see how this year will be even better than last year.

I would like to start this off with a blog about Gifts.com . After browsing the web for a while i stumbled upon this great section under the already popular Gifts.com . They have a great selection of items that cater to the über-earthy Natural Woman and the eco-fabulous Trendanista at the same time.

Follow this link to check out some great ideas and comparisons of gift ideas : Eco-Friendly Gifts for Every Style.

Here are some great gift ideas that i thought were worth browse:

Sun Jar

The Sun Jar shown above comes equipped with a solar-powered cell and rechargeable battery. Its energy efficient LED light will automatically switch on when it gets dark to give you 5 hours of candle-like light. I thought this idea was pretty cool! Basically your catching the ” Energy of the Sun ” in a jar!

Solar Powered Path Lights.

These solar powered path lights are great items! They not only improve the appearance of your yard but they also provide safety lighting. These lights on a full solar charge can last up to 10 hours!

Orvis Wine Barrel Dog Bed

“Crafted from an actual retired white oak wine barrel and solid white pine, this wooden dog bed is perfectly sized to fit our small round Dog’s bed. Dog’s nest not included. Measures 13″H x 27″W x 10 1/2″D. For dogs up to 25 lbs.” We’ve seen numerous attempts at eco-friendly dogs beds but this one is pretty interesting as well as ingenious. Orvis has actually decided to Re-Purpose these retired wine barrels rather than just throw them out. We feel that whenever you can give a item a second life you are taking that one extra step to a sustainable lifestyle.

For more great gift ideas please stop by: Gifts.com

Ford Blazer. Was $250.00 Now $75.00

Launched in New York City in 2004 by designer Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay Hahn,
Loomstate was founded as a casual brand dedicated to creating demand for certified organic cotton
using socially and environmentally responsible methods of production.

I personally LOVE Loomstate’s clothing line and as i was browsing the web today i just so happened to find out that they are having a huge sale on a lot of their fall and winter apparel!

All three items i am highlighting today are pieces from their Men’s Jacket & Outerwear section. Please check out their great selection below:

Santa Paula Jacket. Was $325.00 Now $97.50

Montana Jacket. Was $325.00 Now $97.50

Never With-Out Hood. Was $165.00 Now $49.50

Please follow this link to see Loomstate’s full product line: www.loomstate.org

Elston Messenger Bag, 15x12.4x4.5"

The two founders of Noon Solar, Jane Palmer and Marianne Fairbanks, have backgrounds in fibers and textiles. They met in the graduate MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their company began as an art project in early spring of 2002 as a response to the impending war in Iraq. They were feeling powerless in the country’s decision making process and felt the US was largely going to war for oil. They came up with a solution to give people not only personal power, but to integrate renewable solar power into daily life.

Logan Messenger Tote, 12x14x4"

Noon Solar was actually brought to my attention by a colleague because i ran into the problem of being out on the road and having my phone die out on me.

The Noon Solar product line is great because it produces just enough power after a day in the sun to allow me to charge my phone. Another great feature is that this bag has a battery inside that will store that power for use at a later time.

No Longer will i be stuck without a outlet to charge my phone or MP3 player with. The messenger bags are even constructed to be able to fly on a plane with you. The Noon Solar staff even charged their bags from the sunlight from the window while on that plane! How amazing is that?

For more information on their product line please visit their website : www.noonstyle.com

Simply Green Solutions is holding a Ebay auction for Haiti Earthquake Relief. ALL proceeds from this auction will be donated to UNICEF’s relief fund for Haiti.

The item we are auctioning off is a 4 pack of 25oz Stainless Steel Drinking Canteens. Below is a image of what you will receive:

4 Color Variety Pack of SGS 25oz Stainless Steel Drinking Canteens

Please click on the image to be directed to the Ebay page. Or you can follow this link to the Ebay Page: http://cgi.ebay.com/Simply-Green-Solutions-25oz-4-Pack-Canteen_W0QQitemZ170435609256QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27aec102a8#ht_1342wt_1116

Looptworks is a great apparel manufacturing company that looks for materials thrown out as excess and figures out how to use them to make innovative products- and break the cycle of waste!

From their very own words : ” Looptworks is committed to making our products and running our business without creating any new material. It’s a big goal to live up to, and we may not be able to do it 100%. However, we believe that the experiences we have and the creative process we go through will bring us, and hopefully you, closer to a new way of living.”

We support the concept and process that Looptworks has been working at and feel that they deserve the spotlight to be put on them! Apparel is not all that they are concerned with. They produce the apparel to change the way people think and perceive retail items.

At Simply Green Solutions we follow the same standards! In this industry there are companies out there just to cash in on the whole sustainable movement, but there are also tons of companies that focus on the solutions to the problems that we all notice but few try to fix. Waste is such a horrible thing and as consumers we must all be conscious of the purchase that we make. So please consider “waste” the next time you make a purchase as a conscious consumer.

Here are a few images of some great items for this Fall/Winter.

ecoSkin Is yet another company that Simply Green Solutions would like to bring to you. ecoSkin is a privately-held California apparel company offering chic, contemporary designs for the eco-conscious but fashion-savvy woman. Core to its planet-friendly mission, ecoSkin uses only environmentally sustainable luxury fabrics woven, dyed and sewn in the USA.

To read more about this company please visit their great site : www.ecoskincollections.com

Here are a few great pieces from their Winter 09′ collection:

SILVERBELL DRESS

CALCITE SCARF

JUJU DRESS

Once again we have found another great company that shares our concern in what products we purchase as consumers. Based upon the model of using Organic and Vegan Products that are produced sweatshop free the Autonomie Project has developed and successfully grown a great company that not only cares about what is used to make a product but also how that product is made.

Here is a explanation of who and what the Autonomie Project is off of their very own website:

“Autonomie Project is a new Fair Trade fashion company offeringstylish sweatshop-free & eco-friendly footwear, clothing and accessories. Launched in late 2007, the founders of Autonomie Project were inspired by the lack in the social marketplace of a truly wearable & affordable ethical clothing brand. With the strong desire to effect positive change in our world, these few good friends set off to start a small company with big dreams that aligned with the values of the growing grass-roots movement towards global sustainability”

They work exclusively with small, independent cooperatives and Fair Trade-certified facilities located in developing areas of the world where we can also allot a portion of our funds to be used for initiatives that will affect their entire community, such as building a health clinic or bringing a steady water supply to a small village.

They provide their workers with a fair wage so they can beat out sweatshops and enjoy a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. They assist them with the development, design, and marketing of their products so that their businesses may prosper and become thriving participants in a reconfigured global marketplace.

Here are a few products that we really love:

Ethletic Flip Flop

Women's Bikefish Tee

Keep the Planet Cool Hoodie

Keep the Planet Cool Hoodie

Organic Cotton Shoulder Bag

Please check out their full product ling @ www.autonomieproject.com